LINGUIST List 21.3389 Tue Aug 24 2010 Diss: Lang Acq: Hacohen: 'On the Acquisition of Hebrew ...' Editor for this issue: Mfon Udoinyang <mfonlinguistlist.org> To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at http://linguistlist.org/LL/posttolinguist.cfm. Directory         1.    Aviya Hacohen, On the Acquisition of Hebrew Compositional Telicity Message 1: On the Acquisition of Hebrew Compositional Telicity Date: 24-Aug-2010 From: Aviya Hacohen <aviyabgu.ac.il> Subject: On the Acquisition of Hebrew Compositional Telicity E-mail this message to a friend Institution: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Program: Department of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics: Linguistics Dissertation Status: Completed Degree Date: 2010 Author: Aviya Hacohen Dissertation Title: On the Acquisition of Hebrew Compositional Telicity Linguistic Field(s): Language Acquisition Subject Language(s): Hebrew (heb) Dissertation Director: Nomi Erteschik-Shir Jeannette C Schaeffer Dissertation Abstract: This study investigates the telic/atelic distinction in adult and child Hebrew. The importance of the direct object for the derivation of telicity in adult language is supported with novel psycholinguistic data; however, these findings also indicate that telicity is ultimately derived through implicature. Hence, an original pragmatic account, which elegantly accounts for the data, is developed. Acquisition data from children between the ages of 7;9-17;11 reveal a surprising developmental pattern, with stable, and non-adultlike performance in the telic conditions across all age groups, along with convergence of atelic conditions from age 13;6 and up. I argue that Hebrew speaking children's non-adultlike performance on telicity is caused by their immature knowledge of quantization. Knowledge of telicity was tested on 9 Hebrew-speaking adults and 32 Hebrew-speaking children, aged 7;9-17;11. Participants were presented with video-clips showing an incomplete event and had to judge whether the accompanying (a)telic predicate - orally expressed by the experimenter - matched the event or not. There were six experimental-conditions: (in)definite singular count, e.g. 'color-in a/the square' (target-judgment for both: 'no'); (in)definite plural, e.g. 'color-in (the) squares' (target-judgment for definite: 'no'; target-judgment for indefinite: 'yes'); (in)definite mass, e.g. 'color-in (the) material' (target-judgments: same as for plural conditions). Adult data reveal that the telicity value of the predicate largely depends on whether the direct-object is mass or count and/or whether it is definite or indefinite. However, I also found significant variation in interpretations, both between speakers and between items. Based on these data, I argue that telicity is ultimately implicated pragmatically rather than entailed semantically. The acquisition data revealed that performance on the telic conditions was clearly non-adultlike even for the oldest children tested, with telic predicates often accepted as descriptions of incomplete events. As for atelicity, adultlike performance was not evinced before age 13;6. Given that noun-type and definiteness were shown to be central in adult telicity, two independent experiments were conducted, one testing the mass/count distinction, and the other, testing definiteness. Results revealed no significant difference between adults and children. Given the results of the three experiments, I argue that knowledge of definiteness and the mass/count distinction are both necessary but not sufficient conditions for the acquisition of telicity. Adultlike knowledge of telicity is not simply a natural consequence of combining knowledge of definiteness and the mass/count distinction. Furthermore, these data provide empirical support for the claim that the direct object, and specifically, definiteness and noun type, are not the sole contributors to the derivation of telicity. Thus, findings from this study, which reveal significant variability in adult interpretations, indicate that it is ultimately a pragmatic mechanism that governs the interpretation of predicates as telic or atelic. Furthermore, this hypothesis elegantly accounts for the highly unexpected acquisition data. Assuming that (a)telicity is derived through implicature and taken together with independent evidence that implicatures, and specifically scalar implicatures, are acquired very late, the acquisition data from the current study are straightforwardly accounted for. Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue Page Updated: 24-Aug-2010       About LINGUIST    |   Contact Us       While the LINGUIST List makes every effort to ensure the linguistic relevance of sites listed on its pages, it cannot vouch for their contents.